The online environment for TV viewing has changed considerably in quite a short time. And I won’t lie, I used to download a lot of TV — never films or movies — and while I still do a little bit, I’ve largely stopped now. There’s a few reasons for this.

One, I guess I’m just older. I can afford to buy things more now, and I’m more selective, and more specific in how I spend my time.

But two, and most importantly, there are just more ways to buy and watch things online now. And when they’re really good, like say Game of Thrones, they are worth buying.

And so much has changed. The window of waiting is increasingly smaller than ever, and sometimes non-existant. Game of Thrones is the best example here, airing within hours of the US, and on iTunes the next day.

There’s a few services, but iTunes has changed my viewing habits. For the price of what you’d pay for DVDs in 12 months time, you can get the whole season immediately. The biggest problem is still the shows that aren’t show quickly on Australian TV, and iTunes doesn’t get shows until they’re shown here, but there’s fewer of them than previously, and hopefully that will stop soon.

So right now I get things like Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire through iTunes, and the other big example is The Daily Show. $10 for 16 episodes (more or less a month). Damn right. Before, the only legit way to get these was Foxtel, and that is not a wise of fair cost structure. I mean, even the NRL is getting in on the act, with the $90 season pass letting me watch all games live on my iPad! It’s all changing…